Last month, city council members in Fort Worth, Texas, decided developers that received massive tax breaks to build affordable housing would no longer be able to buy their way out of the obligation by paying a $200 annual fee in lieu of each unbuilt low-income unit. In Columbus, Ohio, leaders voted in December to expand the city’s tax break program for affordable housing. And in Cincinnati, builders can now get an automatic property tax exemption for some affordable housing projects, rather than having to apply. Tax abatements have long been a tool cities use to encourage developers to build h…